VIENNA, Jan 16 (Reuters) - - International sanctions on Iran will be lifted on Saturday when the United Nations nuclear agency declares Tehran has complied with an agreement to scale back its nuclear program, Iran's foreign minister said.
Foreign Minister Javad Zarif arrived in Vienna, headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. body expected to issue a report triggering the lifting of sanctions imposed by the United Nations, United States and European Union.
The sanctions have cut off a nation of nearly 80 million from the global financial system, drastically reduced the exports of a major oil producer and imposed severe economic hardship on ordinary Iranians. Most will be lifted immediately.
Even before the expected announcement, Iran's Mehr news agency reported on Saturday that executives from two of the world's largest oil companies, Shell and Total, had arrived in Tehran for talks with the state oil company and tanker company.
"Today with the release of the IAEA chief's report the nuclear deal will be implemented, after which a joint statement will be made to announce the beginning of the deal," Zarif was quoted as saying in Vienna by state news agency IRNA.
"Today is a good day for the Iranian people as sanctions will be lifted today," the ISNA agency quoted Zarif as saying.
Zarif was due to meet his U.S. counterpart John Kerry, the European Union's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and IAEA chief Yukiya Amano. International journalists were assembled at the IAEA headquarters in anticipation of an announcement. Mogherini tweeted a picture of her meeting with Zarif.
"Implementation day" of the nuclear deal agreed last year marks the biggest re-entry of a former pariah state onto the global economic stage since the end of the Cold War, and a turning point in the hostility between Iran and the United States that has shaped the Middle East since 1979.
It is a defining initiative for both U.S. President Barack Obama and Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, both of whom faced strong opposition from hardliners at home in countries that have called each other "Great Satan" and part of the "axis of evil."
Under the deal, Iran has agreed to forego enrichment of uranium, which world powers feared could be used to make a nuclear weapon. Once sanctions are lifted, Iran plans to swiftly ramp up its exports of oil. Global companies that have been barred from doing business there will be able to exploit a hungry market for anything from automobiles to airplane parts.
Iran's expected return to an already glutted oil market is one of the main factors contributing to a global rout in oil prices, which fell below $30 a barrel this week for the first time in 12 years. Tehran says it could boost exports by 500,000 barrels per day within weeks and another 500,000 within a year, in a world already producing 1.5 million barrels a day more than it consumes and running out of storage space to hold it.
OPPOSED BY REPUBLICANS
The deal is opposed by all of the Republican candidates in the field vying to succeed Obama as president in an election in November, and is viewed with deep suspicion by U.S. allies in the Middle East including Israel and Saudi Arabia.
It is supported by Washington's European allies, who joined Obama earlier in his presidency in making sanctions far tighter as part of a joint strategy to force Tehran to negotiate.
The Obama administration says the deal reached last July offered the best possible prospect of ensuring that Iran would not develop a nuclear weapon, and could never have been achieved without the support of allies, which was always contingent on a pledge to lift sanctions once Iran complied.
For Iran, it marks a crowning achievement for Rouhani, a pragmatic cleric elected in 2013 in a landslide on a promise to reduce Iran's international isolation. He was granted the authority to negotiate the deal by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, an arch conservative in power since 1989.
The U.S.-educated, fluent English-speaking Zarif has emerged as the smiling face of Iran's diplomacy, developing a close rapport with Kerry in unprecedented direct talks. Zarif has chipped away at Iran's image as a pariah state, to the dismay of hardliners in Tehran as well as regional rivals.
"There are some people who see peace as a threat, who were always against (the nuclear deal) and will continue to oppose it," he was quoted as saying by ISNA.
The prospect of Iran's emergence from isolation could overturn the geo-political balance of the Middle East at a particularly volatile time.
Iran is the pre-eminent Shi'ite Muslim power, and its allies are fighting proxy wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen against allies of its main Sunni Muslim regional rival, Saudi Arabia.
In Iraq, Tehran has found itself on the same side as the United States, supporting a Shi'ite-led government against Sunni militants of Islamic State.
Zarif has argued, including in a New York Times Op-Ed column last week, that Iran could be a partner for the West fighting Sunni Muslim militants, who he said are spurred on by policies adopted by Saudi Arabia.
"It's now time for all - especially Muslim nations - to join hands and rid the world of violent extremism. Iran is ready," Zarif tweeted on Saturday.
But U.S.-Iranian hostility still remains deeply entrenched. Apart from the nuclear issue, Washington maintains separate, far less comprehensive sanctions on Iran over its missile program.
Iran has tested missiles since the nuclear agreement, drawing threats from Washington to tighten those sanctions. A week ago Iran detained 10 U.S. sailors on two boats in the Gulf, although they were released the next day after Tehran said it had concluded they had entered its waters by mistake. (Additional reporting by Sam Wilkin in Dubai; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Dominic Evans)
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